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Kip W ↑unearthed the above wonderful, stunningly up-to-date ↑Punch cartoon (Williams 1955: 164) by artist ↑Lewis Baumer (1870-1963), which first was published in 1906! It’s great historical evidence for how early in the development of a given technology people not only speculate about the future trajectory of said development, but also think about possible social consequences of it. WILLIAMS, RONALD EARNEST. 1955. A century of Punch cartoons. New York: Simon and Schuster. via ↑entry at ↑boingboing … Continue reading →

A well-known carrier over here once advertised the iPhone 4 as featuring a ‘new ↑SIM card technology.’ ↑What they meant was the so-called ‘micro-SIM.’ Well, meanwhile we have reached the ‘nano-SIM’—yet another unbelievable leap of technology. But hold your breath, it gets even better. By investing five bucks you can be at the forefront of innovation yourself, by buying the ‘Nano SIM Cutter,’ which ‘takes any regular or micro size and trims the excess off to provide you a precision cut nano SIM. It’s simple, you insert your SIM card with the contacts facing downwards, push the SIM card all … Continue reading →

These days the telephone turns 150 … if, without any reservations whatsoever, you accept ↑Johann Philipp Reis (1834-1874) as its inventor. German media during the last weeks were inclined to accept it that way, naturally. Alas, a short glimpse on the ↑timeline of the telephone teaches us that we can not anymore write histories of technology by constructing absolute origins and godlike inventor personalities. Nevertheless does it seem above dispute that Reis coined the term “telephone.” Be all that as it may, I take the ample opportunity to have a look on how the future of the telephone … Continue reading →

… get to the poetry faster This is way overdue. It must have been in the late 1980s or early ’90s that for the first time I saw ↑Marco Tempest perform live. It was at one of those bigger magicians’ conventions in Germany where you can see and meet—if you’re a bit lucky—real top acts. Marco Tempest’s act was top, plus it was completely not off the peg. Brilliant stage magic lacking every standard element. Centerstage there was a big television set, Mr Tempest acted left, right, and behind that set and made flashy colored rubber balls move and jump … Continue reading →

‘Maxpy,’ a 22-year-old programmer from Shenzhen, PR China, has developed and built a device which makes an iPod Touch into an iPhone. The ‘Apple Peel 520‘ is a case fitting around an iPod Touch, containing a battery, dock connector and SIM card. What’s more is the Apple Peel also illustrates the evolution of China’s massive “shanzhai,” or black market, phone industry. Based mostly in Shenzhen, it is an industry characterized by the massive production of copycat mobile phones and other devices, which are sold at lower prices and often with more localized functionality than global brands [bold emphasis mine]. via … Continue reading →

Definitely I won’t repeat all the hype—if you are out for that, watch Steve Job’s Macworld keynote and the animations at the ↑iPhone homepage. What indeed strikes me is the usual Apple understatement, clear-cut physical design, and of course the multi-touch interface which promises to be intuitive to the max. And more than that—judging from the animations, the interface lets all our visions and dreams derived from countless science fiction and cyberpunk phantasies come true. If it really will work like illustrated above, enabling us for instance to push a row of album covers, neatly set up vertically on … Continue reading →